So, what's the solution to pairing socks? Buying many pairs from the same. Sure. That makes sense. But what happens when half of them are lost or damaged and you can't buy the same kind?
Do you end up as someone pairing socks again or do you throw away half of your socks?
You can always demote the other half of socks to cleaning supplies. They are really useful to stick your hand into and start going to all those hard to reach places all around the house, gathering dust. When done, just turn them inside out to trap the dust inside and THEN throw them away.
If you rotate your socks appropriately the other half is probably about to be damaged anyway, so just throw them out. The savings on using each sock until the very end are marginal.
Even nice socks are pretty cheap. Time spent thinking about socks is almost certainly negatively valued due to when factoring in opportunity costs. So yeah, toss the orphan socks.
In my 20s I used to think it was awesome to have all the same cheap white tube socks, just a drawer full of them that I didn't have to pair. Then somehow I got interested in merino wool socks and liked them. So eventually (expensive!) I built up a collection of them and most are different which means they all get paired after drying. Now I don't mind pairing them.
Maybe as one gets older they are less likely to mind pairing socks? Maybe as they get wealthier (as employment became much less immediately necessary to my comfort, something "snapped" and now I enjoy working (working hard) on things around the house). Maybe just having more expensive socks means one doesn't mind spending time with them.
I tend to get white socks or black socks. Over time, yes, different brands are not an exact match but in general, it's close enough for me and I just don't worry about it.
Do you end up as someone pairing socks again or do you throw away half of your socks?